Other than strategically changing their rhetoric, what actual policies would the GOP have used in 2009?

Nothing Obama didn't do.

Despite political differences both parties are one and the same. Scooter has a hard time realizing that because it watches too much TV. I guess he forgot that Republicans voted for all these damn bailouts too. Including the Auto-bailouts - yes yes they did. Stop TV-Tubing so much and read a book you ignoramus. No wonder why this country is screwed when so many Americans can't tell the difference from their asshole and a dirt hole in the ground. The ignorance is PROFOUND.

They are politically different on paper, but as far as differences on war, fiscal issues, and our civil liberties BOTH parties are essentially the same.

Both are capable of running up insane deficits and raising our taxes (Bush done it, and former GOP front runner Santorum claimed to be the "conservative" option towards Romney has a terrible record of voting for Appropriation bills. Which are federal spending bills that raise deficits and raise our taxes. He voted for Planned Parenthood and No Child Left Beyond Act. Claiming that in Washington you have to be a "teamplayer" every once in a while in politics. Which only proves he will bend his principles to please a group of people, which is exactly the problem in Washington ATM.) both parties have shown they are no friends of civil liberties (both supported Patriot Act, and under both Administrations Bush and Obama we seen a mass scale of civil liberty violations and even government planned assassinations of US citizens.), finally both parties want more war. Face it people.

Obama campaigned on ending the wars, he expanded them. Democrats hooted and raved for years about these wars and how'd they end them. They did this to appeal to the people, since polls have shown over half of Americans are sick and tired of all these foreign wars. Obama expanded the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and into other countries including Libya and Pakistan and now a possible invasion of Iran is on the table.

To put more of that into perspective look at the tea party caucus in Washington. They campaigned on defending our civil liberties and lowering our taxes and only like 2 have voted to protect our freedoms and not raise taxes.

They will say anything to please a crowd and get public office.

Taxes remove money from the economy, and move it to the government. Lowering taxes directly affects the economy in a positive way. The government does not produce anything of value, but rather is just a very large bureaucratic entity that redistributes wealth after taking their cut of the loot.

The GOP would not have spent their first year forcing obamacare on the people.

Instead of focusing like a laser on Jobs, obamacare was the only thing obama was concerned with in his first year, allowing the recession to get much worse.

Then passing the biggest job killing legislation ever seen.

obamacare will have a huge impact on all business and employers are uncertain of the future and expense of employees so they are not hiring until the future is certain.

Democrat Howard Dean: "Obamacare Will Kill Private Health Insurance"

http://nation.foxnews.com/howard-dean/2011/09/20/h...

CBO Says obamacare will Loose or Destroy 800,000 Jobs

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo-director-s...

Health Care Plan will ELIMINATE private insurance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk&feature...

Democrat Dingell Obamacare Will Contol The People

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQJ0Fqj7Us

Now the GOP would not have spent all that stimulus money on growing government and labor union pay back like obama did.

The biggest chunk of stimulus money went to teachers pensions and buying temporary government jobs. The rest went to construction jobs for union members only.

Federal Contracts to Union Shops Only

http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/15/obama-administra...

Government Workers Benefit Most From Stimulus

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/6411652...

Federal Jobs Increase 11.7% Since 2007

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/22/federal-workfo...

Federal Workers Making 150k Has Soared 10 Tenfold In 5 Years

http://blogs.forbes.com/brianwingfield/2010/11/10/...

Tax Cuts for the rich. Punish the lazy poor people by raising their taxes.

we would have passed a budget for a change

we would NOT have wasted $1 trillion on stimulus

we would NOT have promised a bunch of stupid new regulations

we would NOT have hired 100 new czars...

(wait--how many did you want?)

we would NOT have had our boot on the throat of BP

we would NOT have forced a take-over of the auto industry

we would NOT have bribed people with cash for clunkers

we would NOT have bribed people with cash for houses

when the first stimulus failed, we would NOT have followed up with 3 more

No more Keynesian crap. It doesn't work. What we need to do is to get the government off the backs of enterprising people.